I'm sure everyone has experienced walking into a meeting or class late. Sometimes there is a legitimate reason, sometimes it is just poor planning - sometimes it's both. With me it is both, and it will be a recurring theme all semester. For those of you that don't know the fates conspired against me and the only two classes that I'm taking this semester overlap by 50 minutes. Unfortunately, I'm am not Hermione Granger and the two places at once thing is not possible through magic. Aaron is being nice enough to tolerate my perpetual tardiness, and I hope all of you will excuse my untimely arrival.
In a classroom or a FTF meeting it is easy enough to get up-to-speed. Someone throws you a copy of the agenda, you read the board notes or someone whispers at you that everyone is on page 137 and you can figure it out from there. Pretty soon you have a good idea what is going on and you can contribute to the conversation.
This is not true when you sign on to a virtual class meeting late. When I walked in I was greeted warmly and told that we were on question number 4. Slight problem - I didn't know what the questions were. I went back to the main page to go grab the questions to find myself logged out of the classroom area. Unlike a real classroom where when you get there you are there the Web CT/Blackboard interface doesn't allow multiple logins nor can you be doing two things at once (which you can in a real classroom - looking for a book and listening to conversation or searching for a page and holding up your hand to comment). Going to find the questions was like me leaving the room to go to another to get the handout. When I came back the conversation had gone on without me and there was no way to get up to speed. I think with communicating online typing takes longer than writing so people are less able to tell you what is going on without taking a lot of time. I was told I would get a copy of the conversation (which was great) but it didn't allow me to participate in real time.
Part of this problem might occur because writing is more permanent than talking. Many of us use bulletin boards to communicate and we are use to being able to look back and follow a conversation even though we weren't there when the conversation started. Using this totally sychronous environment does not allow anyone to go back and see what happened in their absense. I have to admit that I hated not being able to go back and look. I was annoyed with the software that was so poorly designed that I couldn't have what I needed (that is a text of the running conversation). I felt irresponsible because I couldn't participate. And then I managed to kick the powerstrip in the computer lab and the computer turned off.
The second half of the class was a lot more beneficial to me. I managed to be there and an keep the lab computer on- so the whole class wasn't a bust. I do think that this method of conducting online classes needs to be improved because things do happen. People sign on late, have to step away for a minute, have power outages, etc. These annoyances shouldn't have such catastrophic implications.
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